Florida

Flight School Finds Life Jackets Possibly Tied to Missing Teens

A Sarasota flight school has discovered a pair of orange life jackets off the coast of Georgia, a possible breakthrough in the ongoing search for two teens who went missing off the Florida coast in July.

Heli Aviation on Tuesday shared a video on their Facebook page of volunteers retrieving the orange life vests from a sandbar near Savannah. It is unclear whether those life vests are connected to missing boaters Perry Cohen and Austin Stephanos.

Search dogs have been sent to Georgia to sniff the life vests for any scent of the boys.  The dogs will also help volunteers sift through the coastline near where the jackets were found in hopes to find more clues.

"It stuck out from the other debris that was around because it was newer and it didn't have as much fade as the other items," said Rachel Trimpe, a volunteer with the flight school.

Cohen and Stephanos, both 14, disappeared while fishing in the Jupiter Inlet on July 24. The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its efforts to find the boys Friday, one week after they went missing. 

Despite the USCG's suspension, the families have continued their search for the boys with the assistance of volunteer crews. 

They have also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars through a GoFundMe Campaign, but stopped accepting donations once reaching their financing goal.

The search for the teens has spanned from Jupiter to Wilmington, North Carolina.

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